
Israel reinstates full closure of Al-Aqsa Mosque
Israeli forces on Sunday morning reinstated the full closure of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, barring worshippers from entry except for mosque guards and Islamic Waqf staff.
The closure followed an overnight raid by Israeli police, during which they stormed prayer halls, vandalised sacred spaces, and removed worshippers by force. They also arrested four mosque guards while other were interrogated on-site.
The Islamic Waqf condemned the violations, warning that repeated Israeli attempts to assert security control over the mosque aim to alter the religious and political status quo.
The incident comes after nine days of restricted access to the mosque amid the Israeli war on Iran.
On 13 June, Israeli forces completely shut down Al-Aqsa Mosque, citing the ongoing war with Iran (Ahmad GHARABLI/AFP)

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Also in May, on his first overseas trip - which, naturally, took the new German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, to Israel - he, like many of his predecessors, was not above adopting Israel's mendacious propaganda. After completing the obligatory visit to Yad Vashem, Wadephul expressed understanding for Israel's decision to block humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians in Gaza, citing claims that Hamas might exploit the supplies. Again, the German public is not told that, like Livni Beach, Yad Vashem was also built on the ruins of the Nakba. As Palestinian anthropologist Honaida Ghanim has documented: Yad Vashem was built upon the lands of Khirbet al-Hamama, which were public lands that belonged to the village of Ein Karem - one of the largest villages in the Jerusalem district in terms of space and population, home to 2,510 Muslims and 670 Christians. 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On 24 May 2025, as children starved - and many had already starved to death - Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Germany's leading liberal newspaper and self-styled "opinion leader", argued that Germany could not criticise Israel as harshly as Canada, France or the UK, lest it be accused of abandoning a "traumatised people". A prominent German columnist inviting readers to pity a regime whose Jewish population overwhelmingly supports the extermination of all Palestinians In good German tradition, columnist Daniel Brossler made himself the stooge of the crime of the 21st century, repeating the old Zionist propaganda that casts Israel as the victim. This elite journalist is prepared to turn history on its head. 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Some have even gone so far as to cancel appearances by Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories - a figure who, unlike the German elite, lives up to the responsibilities of her position and speaks out against the silence and lies of the powerful. What an abysmal disgrace the behaviour of these university presidents is for German science. New guilt Pretending not to smell the burning flesh of Palestinian children or hear their cries, Germany's submissive and fearful elites are doing precisely what Norman Finkelstein has condemned: using the Holocaust not to honour its victims, but to justify the genocide of the Palestinian people. Welcome to Berlin, the capital of Zionist repression Jurgen Mackert Read More » As he put it: "The biggest insult to the memory of the Holocaust is not denying it but using it to justify the genocide of the Palestinian people." By despicably misusing the Holocaust in this way, Germany's elites have failed utterly. They have lost all credibility and should never again raise their voices in the name of human rights or humanity. From their mouths, such values will only ring hollow. These white elites will never raise their voices for non-white Palestinians. They do not even shudder in the face of infanticide on a biblical scale. Their silence is deafening. Repulsive. Obscene. This is Germany's new guilt. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.


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